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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat the F***? The hazardous bio lab in Galveston, TX is at only 30 feet above sea level!
And yet they were sure, as of 2008, that the lab could handle anything nature threw at it. Now they're not answering reporters' phone calls.
To put this into perspective: Houston is is 43 feet above sea level and Hurricane Harvey reached wind speeds as high as 130 miles an hour.
But no worries. Their facility was built to withstand winds of 140 miles an hour. And their emergency power system, located on the first floor, can keep samples of killer disease dormant for 4 whole days!
From 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/us/29lab.html
How a laboratory where scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg ended up on a barrier island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc puzzles some environmentalists and community leaders.
Its crazy, in my mind, said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.
Officials at the laboratory and at the National Institutes of Health, which along with the university is helping to pay for the $174 million building, say it can withstand any storm the Atlantic hurls at it.
Built atop concrete pylons driven 120 feet into the ground, the seven-floor laboratory was designed to stand up to 140-mile-an-hour winds. Its backup generators and high-security laboratories are 30 feet above sea level.
SNIP
Even if the emergency power system were to fail, the freezers can keep the samples of killer diseases dormant for about four days, she said.
FROM YESTERDAY:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57276/harvey-longterm-effects/
There has been almost no news from Galveston as journalists have reported being blocked from reaching the island because of severe flooding. There has been no reporting at all on the condition of the lab. A call to the laboratory on Tuesday immediately went to voicemail.
roamer65
(36,747 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)politicians determine the locations of government facilities instead of scientists.
FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)...Consortium News republished it before it was wiped, but I don't wanna give an unreliable site like Consortium any clicks.
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)Seriously, it reminds me of the background from some B sci fi movie. The set up is so moronic you would never believe it could happen in real life. Yet, here it is!
world wide wally
(21,757 posts)Right, Diablo Canyon?
GReedDiamond
(5,318 posts)The "plan" is to bury San Onofre's nuke power plant nuclear waste under the beach.
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/04/11/plans-to-bury-san-onofres-nuclear-waste-near-iconic-beach-has-surfers-opponents-on-edge/
C Moon
(12,223 posts)pansypoo53219
(21,004 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)CousinIT
(9,264 posts)raven mad
(4,940 posts)Vinca
(50,318 posts)FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)Build a nuclear power plant in an area known for Tsunamis and then put the critical backup power systems in the easily flooded basement.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)By Adrian Walker Globe Columnist July 28, 2014
4-5 minutes
Boston Universitys $200 million biohazard lab in the South End is like no other building in the city.
The lab is visible from Albany Street but its entrance isnt, which is part of the security plan for a place where scientists could eventually perform research on some of the most hazardous materials on earth. Walls and floors are roughly twice the thickness of a normal building.
It is built to withstand hurricanes, and its director brags that it will be the safest building in town if another earthquake ever strikes.
It is a lab, tucked in a densely populated neighborhood, that would operate with the most sensitive of designations, BSL-4. That denotes a lab that does research on deadly substances, ones with no vaccines or treatment. The pathogens, if mishandled, would almost certainly prove lethal.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/12/24/biolab-gets-cdc-green-light-for-level-research-but-still-needs-city-approval/xgYk6jljuTOyohcWRySTNI/story.html
By Evan Allen and Felicia Gans Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent December 24, 2016
6-8 minutes
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory to operate on Boston Universitys medical campus in the South End, according to the Boston Public Health Commission.
Scientists in the National Emerging Infectious Diseases lab would have clearance to study the worlds deadliest pathogens, such as Ebola. The biolab still needs to win approval from the citys health commission before that research can begin.
It's not just the immediate neighborhood that has to worry; it's about a block from the
Southeast Expressway/I-93 and easily visible to commuters when they're
stuck in traffic during rush hour. Anything airborne that got loose
would get distributed rapidly all over the South Shore...
muriel_volestrangler
(101,390 posts)http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57298/texas-chemical-plant/
pnwmom
(109,009 posts)for their lab and the back up generators. Or that they think that there was a comfortable margin between the 140 MPH wind speeds their facility was built to withstand and the 130 MPH that this hurricane reached.